Stare at goats, eat goat cheese tarts

Friday

If leaving the house this weekend seems more trouble than it's worth, rev up the old DVD player. Here's our suggestion for dinner and a movie.

Movie: The best of Jeff Bridges

Dinner: Asparagus and Goat Cheese Tart

The movie: To some, he's the grizzled, bearded guy who swept this past awards season, culminating with his first Oscar victory in five tries.

To others, he's the son of a legendary TV and film star, a likable Everyman with an impressive movie career that has spanned nearly 40 years.

To me, Jeff Bridges will always be The Dude.

Maybe that's unfair for an actor of his caliber -- a 61-year-old who has endured many career ups and downs but has aged like a fine wine, saving arguably his best work for last when he turned his 2009 performance of an alcoholic country singer in "Crazy Heart" into an Academy Award winner.

Still, especially during his awards acceptance speeches for "Crazy Heart," he embodies The Dude: the laid-back, robe-wearing, White Russian-drinking misfit from the Coen Brothers' 1998 cult classic, "The Big Lebowski."

There's no denying Bridges' versatility and range on screen. You can now see him co-starring with George Clooney and Kevin Spacey in "The Men Who Stare at Goats," the quirky 2009 indie flick that came out on DVD this Tuesday.

But while you're at it, check out some of Bridges' other acting gems: a long list that begins with 1971's "The Last Picture Show," in which he earned his first Oscar nomination at age 22, to the comic-book fare of "Iron Man," and his villainous turn in that 2008 blockbuster box-office smash.

In between, there are many stellar roles you might have forgotten.

Like when he acted opposite his brother, Beau, in "The Fabulous Baker Boys," and opposite King Kong in the 1976 remake of the horror classic.

Or when he played a curious alien in "Starman," a sympathetic racehorse owner in "Seabiscuit," and a college professor on the trail of domestic terrorists in "Arlington Road."

I want to recommend three of my favorite under-the-radar Bridges movies: "Fearless," a brilliant drama about the survivors of an airplane crash; "The Door in the Floor," a clever adaptation of a John Irving novel; and "The Fisher King," for the marvelous chemistry between Bridges and his co-star, Robin Williams.

Could Bridges, fresh off the success of "Crazy Heart," have more gems like the character of Bad Blake left in his tank?

Definitely, dude.

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The dinner: This might just be a cranky former copy editor talking, but I almost always find movie titles worthless. I know they're supposed to intrigue me, like headlines of a news story, but I just find them annoying. They don't tell me much, and only succeed in making all movies sound pretentious.

Of course, I don't really know a remedy for this. You have to call the films something. It's just a silly pet peeve. Incidentally, I feel the same way about the names of rock bands.

And this brings us to "The Men Who Stare at Goats."

That sounds as appealing to me as "The Men Who Stare At Grass Growing."

But I'll suspend my normal eye rolling since Gerry says this movie is good and he's pretty good at figuring out which movies are good. Usually. He does need to learn to relax and enjoy films in the genre of action adventure.

But anyway, goats are wonderfully easy to work into a column about dinner and a movie, and for that I'm grateful.

Goat meat is actually a delicacy in other parts of the world. There are countless recipes and dishes to make with goat milk and cheese, as well as goat meat. We'll just focus on the cheese, which has a distinctive tangy flavor, and is sometimes easier to tolerate by people with allergies and sensitivities to cow's milk.

If you're looking for an excuse to try it, here's a good one.

GERRY WEISS can be reached at 870-1884. Send e-mail to gerry.weiss@timesnews.com. JENNIE GEISLER can be reached at 870-1885. Send e-mail to jennie.geisler@timesnews.com.

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